World War II: Difference between revisions

[[File:world_war_two_170world war two 170.jpg|frame|Humanity's best and worst were displayed for all the world to see.]]

{{quote|''"I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?"''|'''Joseph Goebbels''', 1943 <ref> The guy was a [[Complete Monster]], but his words ''here'' sum up the general feel of the war.</ref>}}

Mussolini feels left out of all this conquest, so the Italians promptly invade the Balkans and Greece -- onlyGreece—only to get in over their heads, losing battles, and [[Stop Helping Me!|forcing Germany to divert precious resources to bailing them out]]. The Wehrmacht then proves their success in France was no fluke by blitzing through Greece and capturing most of the Mediterranean. Only the plucky island of Malta manages to hold on despite near-starvation, an act that gets the entire island awarded the George Cross. Mussolini is humiliated, and Hitler is provided with a whole raft of snide remarks for future cocktail party conversations. (It's worth noting that Italy suffered nearly as much as France in [[World War OneI]], so the allies weren't the only ones suffering from fatalism and defeatism.) The battle shifts to North Africa, where the British and the Germans (not all that much helped by the increasingly poorly led and supplied Italians) wage vital battles for control over the Suez Canal and access to the priceless oil supplies of the Middle East.

After failing to bring Britain down, Hitler looks east to his old enemy -- theenemy—the [[Soviet Union]]. Until then, the Soviets weren't ''officially'' Hitler's enemy. In 1939, [[Strange Bedfellows|the Germans and Soviets had entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]], in which they agreed not to fight each other, secretly agreed to divide up Poland between them, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Germany licensed the Soviets to build their copy of a BMW motorcycle.]] This alliance of convenience was useful to both sides, but neither expected it to last, and Hitler's life dream had always been to destroy the "Jewish Communists" in the Soviet Union. [[Josef Stalin]] agreed to the pact to buy time to rebuild his army, which was totally disorganized after the political purges of the 1930's and the disaster of an attempted invasion of Finland. Finally on June 22, 1941, exactly one year after the fall of France, Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa. It is the greatest offensive in the history of warfare ever, in which nearly four million men storm across the border into Russia: three German Army Groups of about a million men each, supplemented with Italians, Croats, Romanians and Hungarians and other fascist allies. The battle line stretched from the Arctic Ocean down to the Black Sea.

After the fall of France, Japan takes the opportunity to effectively seize the French colony of Indochina -- includingIndochina—including modern-day Vietnam -- ostensiblyVietnam—ostensibly at the "invitation" of the collaborationist Vichy government. President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] has been looking for an excuse to act against them for a while now, so the United States restricts steel and oil exports to Japan in a full embargo in an attempt to bring them to the negotiating table. Since the US is Japan's #1 supplier of both essential commodities, the Japanese government is forced between a rock and a hard place; they cannot be seen as backing down to the USA, but they don't have the strength to take them on and win. With Holland fallen to the Germans and England preoccupied elsewhere the Imperial Navy again proposes, for the umpteenth time, their plan to strike south to seize the oil supplies and rich natural resources of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and British Malaya. This time, however, the Cabinet is willing to listen; the fleet's oil supplies will be depleted within a matter of months and it's not like the Navy and its attached ground forces - the Special Naval Landing Forces - have been making a huge contribution to the China theatre anyway. Taking on the Dutch means taking on Britain, which almost invariably means war with the United States. Given the awkward strategic position of the Philippines, they will have to be taken too if the plan is to [[Didn't Think This Through|'succeed'.]]

After six months of planning and training, a taskforce based around six Japanese aircraft carriers moves out under complete secrecy and on December 7, 1941, catch the Americans completely off guard, wrecking much of the American fleet. Unfortunately (for them), the US fleet's aircraft carriers are at sea and Yamamoto's subordinate Admiral Nagumo is correspondingly cautious, choosing to withdraw rather than launch a third wave of bombers against the base facilities themselves (thereby leaving the fleet vulnerable to a carrier-based counter-attack). Thus Pearl Harbor's drydocks, machine shops, naval headquarters, storehouses and fuel reserves - without which the remnants of the fleet could have been left stranded - are left intact. <ref> Destroying the fleet itself took priority, as the aim of the attack was 'Shock and Awe'; sinking the fleet's ships was rightly considered more impressive than wrecking their repair and resupply facilities. The task force was not, in fact, actually trained for the latter objective. In any case nearly a third of the fleet's aircraft were destroyed in the first two waves, and the remainder were ill-equipped to take out said ground facilities. Take torpedo-bombers, for instance: great for sinking ships, but they can do pretty much nothing against a concrete (bullet-proof) oil-silo.</ref> All things considered the attack hasn't done a great deal of (permanent) damage, as many of the ships can be - and are - repaired and returned to service with a year or so; only three ships are completely out of commission, and a lot of material is salvaged from them. <ref> Also, with their battleships out of action for months, the US Navy is forced to put all its faith into the new untested aircraft carriers and submarines. Though born of necessity at the time, this doctrine rules naval strategy to this day.</ref>

In November of 1942, the Soviets launch another massive offensive in an attempt to push the German Armies from Moscow. It fails, miserably, and Operation Mars is subsequently swept under the historical carpet along with the Ukrainian offensive of the previous summer, never to be mentioned in Soviet or Russian school textbooks. However, a secondary encirclement offensive meets with success. Striking behind the elite German units in the area around Stalingrad itself, the mechanised units of Operation Uranus break through the virtually-anti-tank-weapon-less Romanian forces guarding the flanks of the Sixth Army - trapping the bulk of it in Stalingrad just as the Russian Winter falls in earnest. Despite repeated requests, Hitler refuses to allow the troops to withdraw. He instead demands they fight to the last man and martyr themselves rather than shame him and his visions of Aryan superiority by retreating and promote commanding officer, Friedrich Paulus, to Field Marshal (with a remainder that no German Field Marshal ever surrendered). Futile efforts to resupply the trapped army by air or punch through the Soviet lines predictably fail and the starving remnants of the Sixth Army surrender on February 2, 1943. It's the largest and costliest defeat the Germans have suffered to that point, the rest of Hitler's troops in southern Russia hastily retreat. From there, the Soviets take the initiative, and the war there becomes a long, slow battle of attrition as the USSR gradually grinds the German army into dust. At the same time, the battles between the Axis and the Allies in North Africa, while much smaller in scale than the titanic conflict in the East, end with more decisive Allied victories. At Kharkov, the Germans win a victory that finally halts the Soviet advance, but the tide in Europe has turned.

The tide of battle has turned in the Pacific as well at the end of Japan's six month window of strategic advantage as Admiral Yamamoto warned would happen. In the mid-Pacific, a Japanese attempt to destroy the American fleet and capture the island of Midway leads to disaster. American code-breakers have managed to crack Japan's primary naval encryption and know the fleet's every move. Even better, American dive bombers just happen to catch the Imperial Japanese Navy at a moment when all its planes are being reloaded for an another attack--meaningattack—meaning the hangars of each ship are covered with [[Made of Explodium|fuel, munitions and aircraft]]. [[Curb Stomp Battle|The US Navy sinks three Japanese carriers in the span of five minutes, and a fourth a few hours later, at the loss of only one of its own]]. The IJN is broken as an offensive threat and the balance of power in the Pacific permanently shifts to the United States--thoughStates—though it would be months before this became apparent.

In Europe, Germany's situation goes from bad to worse when the Western Allies -- principallyAllies—principally the Americans, British and Canadians -- landCanadians—land in northern France (Normandy) on [[The Longest Day|the 6th of June, 1944]]; Hitler is now fighting a two-front war against larger and arguably better-equipped armies with better air support. Two weeks after the Allies land in France, the Soviets launch their biggest attack of the war: Operation Bagration, which finally completes one of oldest Soviet strategic goals - annihilates Army Group Centre. The Red Army leaps forward some two hundred miles, clearing almost all of the USSR of Germans and advancing to the gates of Warsaw. Stalin has broken the back of the Wehrmacht. Western Allies initially disbelieved that Soviets were able to do so, which lead to huge "POWs march", where 57 thousands German POWs walked on Moscow streets. In the meantime, while the Soviets are busy wiping out enormous concentrations of German troops, the Western Allies break out of their beachhead in Normandy after two months of savage combat. Increasingly-frequent Allied bombing raids like the one described in [[Slaughterhouse-Five]] do enormous damage to the German war effort and citizenry. The bombing grows steadily more intense through the end of the war, leaving almost every major city in Hitler's Reich in ruins. With the Luftwaffe's bombing capabilities rendered as good as ineffective, having lost their airfields sufficiently close to the Channel, Hitler turns to using the newly-developed Vergeltungswaffen (retaliation weapons), the V-1 'Buzz Bomb' and later the V-2 ballistic missile to try and exact some revenge on the British, who by and large consider this nuisance not worth getting worked up about.

Saipan (and nearby Tinian, captured soon after) are close enough to allow US bombers to strike the Japanese Home Islands. This is initially of limited effectiveness,as strong winds over Japan make precision bombing impossible. Once someone suggests using [[Kill It with Fire|fire-bombs]] (sound familiar?) to set the cities ablaze, the bombing becomes much more effective and the war has finally come full circle as the very nation that started out decrying Japanese "terror bombing" in China is now deliberately targeting civilians themselves. Like many contemporary Chinese buildings, most Japanese buildings of the time used a lot of flammable materials ----wood, bamboo, rattan, rice paper--inpaper—in their construction. The fire-bombing campaign is ''super'' effective, razing entire towns practically overnight and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. What's left of the Imperial Navy sallies forth for one last battle against the Americans and despite one portion of the fleet coming very near to its objective, is promptly annihilated in history's largest naval engagement, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. American [[Yanks With Tanks|soldiers]] make landfall in the Philippines in late 1944 and after several brutal months of combat, they wrest control of most of their former colony from the Japanese. By now, it is apparent even to the Japanese themselves that Japan's defeat is inevitable.

In Europe, despite Allied control of the air, the loss of their most experienced forces, and destruction of their factories, the Germans have one advantage left: they are no longer trying to defend all of Western Europe and the Allied supply problems are at critical levels. Hitler takes a leaf out of his Eastern Ally's book and gathers what offensive strength he has left to hurl it at the Western Allies in a surprise attack. In December 1944, his legions attack through the Ardennes - the same route by which they snuck into France four and a half years before - in a desperate and ill-advised attempt to cut a wedge between the American and British forces. However, there is a huge difference between the Ardennes of 1939 -- when1939—when forests were picketed by only a few detached cavalry vedettes -- andvedettes—and 1944, when the lines are manned by three full (but green) US Army Divisions, backed by Allied tactical airpower and the world's best artillery.

The "Battle of the Bulge" results in German gains for a few days under the cover of bad weather, then an inevitable defeat as Hitler's tanks run out of fuel and are left behind as his troops are pushed back by Allied counter-attacks, especially when the streak of cloudy days runs out and the Allies' air forces can resume operations. This defeat essentially breaks the back of Germany's power to resist in the West. Germany is now a country void of teen- and middle-aged males, who have virtually all been drafted into citizen militias to defend the Fatherland to the last. Meanwhile, the Soviets clear Poland of German forces and push all the way to the Oder river, 56 miles from Berlin, and taking the time to advance through the Balkans, Hungary, and Romania before advancing into Germany proper - so that they will be negotiating the post-war world order from a position of strength. In April of 1945, Soviet and American troops meet at a German village called Torgau. The job of taking Berlin is left to the Soviets, who is ten times closer at the moment, who do so in the latter part of April and at 1st1 May Red Flag vaves above the Reichstag in an operation, that even Allied generals was forced to remark as highly successful. Hitler [[Better to Die Than Be Killed|kills himself]] in his underground bunker on April 30, 1945. On May 8, the Germans officially surrender and the war in Europe is over.

Planned for October, there is no attempt to disguise the planned invasion's timing or purpose - not that the Imperial Cabinet has a great track record in accurately anticipating ''anyone'' else's actions thus far. Christened ''[[Meaningful Name|Operation Downfall]]'', [[Beyond the Impossible|it is expected to more than double the total number of Allied military casualties]]. Japanese civilian casualties are expected to surpass Chinese levels, quite a feat considering Japan has only one tenth of China's total population. The Guomindang is on the verge of launching its own offensive, the first of the war, to re-take as much of China as possible before the Soviets get there - Jiang Jieshi fears that the Soviets will turn all the land, weapons and equipment they liberate from the Japanese straight over to the Chinese Communists. <ref>Stalin doesn't for the most part, as he wouldn't mind Jiang winning the civil war. He does, however, turn all the captured Japanese equipment and weapons over to the north Chinese Communist Parties.</ref> Given the terrible inter-unit co-ordination that Jiang's forces have displayed so far, their offensive actions being limited to counter-attacks, the Japanese doubt that the Nationalist Party forces will get very far despite their own (total) lack of air cover and (chronic) supply problems.

World War II is over. The Americans and Soviets try to get the Chinese Nationalists and Communists to form a government together; unsurprisingly they fail, and after a further three years of civil war the Communists proclaim the [[People's Republic of Tyranny|Peoples' Republic of China]] in 1949, while the Nationalists retreat to [[Taiwan]]. As the tide of the war turns against the Nationalists, Churchill makes his 'Iron Curtain' speech and the Americans begin to see Communism as a real threat. After years of dithering, America speedily moves to invest in rebuilding the economies and militaries of Germany and Japan, changing the earlier program of peaceful 'nation-building' to create strong Allies.

The war killed about 62 to 78 million people, 3-4% of the world's population at that time. The USSR 'won' the numbers of total and total military casualties at about 26.6 million people in all. Next was China, who won out in the numbers of civilian dead for a total at least in the mid-teens of millions. Poland lost a seventh of its population and the Soviet Republic of Belarus - which bore the brunt of both German and Soviet offensives ''and'' history's highest-intensity guerrilla warfare - lost '''''a full quarter''''' of its people, proportionally more than even the Jews. Yugoslavia lost some 1 million of its 15-million population. Hungary and Greece were similarly mauled, losing up to 6% and 10% of their populations respectively. The Commonwealth and France, however, actually had less military deaths than in [[World War OneI]]. This isn't particularly surprising, since the Soviets bore the brunt of the German onslaught, but civilian casualties were ''much'' higher, due to the aerial bombings, massacres of civilians (as reprisals) and the occasional spot of genocide.

* [[All of Them]]: An [[Urban Legends|Urban Legend]] states that on [[World War II|D-Day]] dawn a German soldier looked out at the English Channel and phoned his superiors:

* [[America Wins the War]]: To this day, many Westerners do not appreciate the extent to which the war in Europe was mainly fought and mostly decided on the Eastern Front. <ref>Though this is balanced out by how notoriously unhelpful they were in the Pacific Front; they didn't even let the Allies use their Pacific ports to bomb Japan.</ref>

** The World War II monument in Washington DC states "[http://lh3.ggpht.com/_pVXrYi8s2rM/Sui2hpM0sEI/AAAAAAAACDY/0f-Pa3th1DM/DSCF2893%5B10%5D.jpg Americans came to liberate, not to conquer]", at least stating we came, we helped, we left.

** Quite notable were the defenders of Westerplatte, in the first days of the war. Despite being completely unprepared (due to the government's indecisiveness whether to prepare for war or not...), they held their position against overwhelming German forces, who considered them [[Worthy Opponent|Worthy Opponents]]s to the point of allowing the Poles a surrender with full military honors once they ran out of ammo and food; the outpost commander was even allowed to keep his sabre.

*** The ones who stayed in German-occupied Poland and managed to avoid capture by the Nazis went undegroundunderground and [[La Résistance|organised themselves into two separate movements]]: the Home Army (AK) and the People's Army (AL). There were also some smaller, far-right resistance groups who fought both the Nazis and the Soviets.

** Archibald Wavell, an eccentric nerd-like general, under whose command the ItaliansBritish in North Africa were reduced the Italians to near-nothingness even before the Germans arrived to reinforce them (thus making Italy into [[The Load]]).

* [[Big Bulky Bomb]]: By the middle of the war, the Allies were dropping Blockbuster Bombs on target cities, so named because they could destroy an entire city block. The British also deployed the "Tallboy" and "Grand Slam", single high-explosive bombs that weighed in at 12,000 and ''22,000'' pounds respectively... they were essentially the over-sized and unguided predecessors of modern bunker-busters. By the end, the U.S. had developed -- anddeveloped—and deployed -- [[Atomic Hate|the first nuclear weapons]].

* [[Black and White Morality]]: One of the few historical wars to still routinely get this treatment in fiction. The Axis were bad, the Allies were good. The reality was a lot closer to [[Black and Grey Morality]]; most of the Axis forces were most certainly bad by any sane measure, but the Allies (''[[Token Evil Teammate|''especially]]'' [[Token Evil Teammate|Stalin]] {{[[[And Zoidberg]] and Jiang}}]) were no saints.

** The Morse Code for V is dot dot dot dash, hence British radio news broadcasts opened with the opening bar of Beethoven's Fifth .<ref> [[Fridge Brilliance|The Roman numeral for "5" also looks like "V"]], thus making its presence in Beethoven's "Fifth" very appropriate</ref>.

*** All of which involved flanking the enemy and charging from behind. The Cossacks, being the ultimate [[Combat Pragmatist|Combat Pragmatists]]s, always preferred to shoot their enemies in the back, if possible.

* [[Eagle Squadron]]: Many. The [[Trope Namer]] was an American unit of volunteers flying with the RAF when the USA was neutral. The Nazis used several -- theseveral—the last troops defending Hitler's Chancellery and bunker were volunteer French Waffen SS.

** Germany, too, if you translate from German .<ref>"Reich" as in "The Third Reich" translates to "empire"</ref>.

** Britain: Both the Special Air Service and Royal Marine Commandos originated in this war, and were the first "special forces" units as we understand them. They'd later field the Special Boat Service for purposes of beach recon, riverine infiltration, and generally being badass. It's definitely worth noting that they pulled off some absolutely ''insane'' shit, just read a few entiresentries from [[wikipedia:Category:World War II British Commando raids|this list.]]

** USSR: Guards regiments - promoted from normal stats for exeptionalexceptional behaviour in combat, both in terms of effectiveness and moral. Were better supplied, had more combat experianceexperience than usual and thus fought much more effectively that rest.

* [[Glamorous Wartime Singer]]: Marlene Dietrich stands out. Her "Lili MarleenMarlene" has been called the theme song of the entire war.

** During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Halsey's Task Force 34 was drawn north by a diversionary Japanese fleet, leaving the invasion force without most of its defenses. Nimitz, from Pearl Harbor, was seeing messages of the battle at Leyte Gulf and seeing no sign of Halsey sent the following message: "Where is Task Force 34? The world wonders." The second part was not part of the original message, but was padding that was supposed to be discarded after decoding (and itself was from ''The Charge of the Light Brigade''), though some think the decoder deliberately left it in. ReportablyReportedly Halsey broke into tears at the message and its implications about him.

*** This was compounded by the fact that the Kamikaze system forced many would-be pilots to die far before their time. Dying in a Kamikaze divebomb was considered to be an honor, but it would leadled to the deaths of almost all young aspiring pilots the Japanese had, pilots who would have been great replacements for the veterans they were loosing daily.

* [[I Shall Return]]: [[Trope Maker]], from Gen. MacArthur after he left the PhillippinesPhilippines to avoid capture by the Japanese.

** There was big partizanpartisan movement in USSR by soldiers that was surrounded, escaped, but didn't manajedmanaged to rejoin army and civilians. PartizansPartisans, where able, were supported, with paradropped supplies and even soldiers and officers. Best known aspect is railroad war, when partisans mined and disabled tracks in different fasionsfashions, sending trains downhill and destroying brigesbridges.

*** They played huge role in operation Bagration: Germans were led to belivebelieve that the attack willwould be troughthrough UkrainUkraine. and immediadlyImmediately before the attack, all roads were disabled and troops in Belarus were left without help.

* [[The Laws and Customs of War]]: Incredibly mixed. As a general rule, [[Nazi Germany]] treated the Western Allies as [[Worthy Opponent|Worthy Opponents]]s and the Soviets as subhuman scum. Kept one moment with an almost courtly adherence to the [[Good Old Ways]], but at other times, stomped on [[Beyond the Impossible]].

** Italy wasn't ready for the war for a series of reasons, the most evident of which being that the Italian industry, while capable to produce some fine equipment and in full expansion, was just too small to adequately support its armed forces in such a vast war (in fact, Mussolini knew this, and had Italy enter the war when France was all but conquered and Britain seemed about to sue for peace. Then Britain choose to fight, and Mussolini started to realize he was holding the [[Idiot Ball]]). Then there were the problems of the armed forces. The air force, while equipped with capable attack aircraftsaircraft (best known of which is the [[wikipedia:Savoia-Marchetti SM.79|Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero]], Sparviero being Italian for [[Big Badass Bird of Prey|Sparrowhawk]]), had bombs too little to do the job (nicknamed cowshit drops by the Italian Navy for their ineffectiveness) was still equipped with very manouverable but too slow ''biplane fighters'', and the new monoplane fighters, while on par and sometimes superior to the ones of other powers, were too little and too late. The navy was powerful and arguably the best of the Italian armed forces, but lacked carriers and torpedo boats due [[Interservice Rivalry|rivalry with the air force]] and Mussolini thinking that the Italian peninsula was an unsinkable carrier by itself, was insufficiently supported by the air force (that usually arrived on the battlefield too late and had the unfortunate tendency to [[Friend or Foe|mistake the Italian ships for the British ones]]. That's also how the Italian navy learned of the ineffectiveness of the air force bombs), suffered from an extremely restrictive operative doctrine that included the fleet being directed from Rome until a few minutes before the battle (meaning the Royal Navy always knew where the Italians were by tracking the radio signals), and the fact they weren't fighting the French Navy (that the Italian Navy was tailored to counter and defeat with a combination of speed advantage in the lesser ships and four battleships that outgunned everything in the world save for the ''Yamato'' and the most massive American battleships) but the Royal Navy, that the Italian sailors admired and feared and whose ships and aggressive operative doctrine seemed tailored to take advantage of the Italian ships [[Fragile Speedster|sacrificing protection for speed]] and their restrictive operative doctrine. Finally the army suffered of severe morale problems (a reflection of the Italian people lack of enthusiasm for the war), shortage of modern or efficient equipment and most high officers and generals getting their ranks from politics rather than actual ability impairing the ability and, most important, the ''will'' to fight of most units in spite of the soldiers combat capability (Rommel, whose troops included both Germans and Italians, admitted that the Italian soldiers were superior to the German ones, but the officers were a disaster). As [[La Résistance|partisans]] the now motivated Italians fared much better, even taking control of enclaves and defending them against overwhelming force for short periods and, on April 25, 1945, launching a general insurrection that prevented the Germans from regrouping and hold off the Allies at the Po river.

* [[Macross Missile Massacre]]: FirstThe occasionfirst wasoccurred then,when whenthe Soviets used the BM series, better known as Katyushas. -One system, that wasn't used before.truck Beingbeing able to launch as much explosives in seconds as a big artillery battery in minutes, it had huge psychological effect on both friendsfriend and foesfoe.

* [[Music for Courage]]: The glory days of military orchestras and [[Glamorous Wartime Singer|Glamorous Wartime Singers]]s.

** Invading the Soviet Union -- thusUnion—thus splitting Germany between two fronts against major powers -- countspowers—counts as this. [[Stupid Evil|Drawing America in the European conflict]] ''[[Stupid Evil|too]]'' was just the cherry on top of the stupidity sundae.

{{quote|I was the first tank coming ashore and the Germans started opening up with machine guns. But when we came to a halt on the beach, it was only then that they realized we were a tank when we pulled down our canvas skirt, the floatationflotation gear. Then they saw that we were Shermans. It was quite amazing. I still remember very vividly some of the machine gunners [[Oh Crap|standing up in their posts looking at us with their mouths wide open]]. To see tanks coming out of the water shook them rigid.}}

* [[Order Versus Chaos]]: Nazi ideology is based upon a fabricated myth about Aryans, with strong emotional attachments to the state with the aid of romantic and religious symbolism and imagery. The Stalinist-Soviets claimed an ideology based upon 'rationalism' and a society based upon people-centric utilitarianism with emphasesemphasis on international workers' solidarity and the promised land of a past-scarcity, post-capitalist world.

** [[The British Empire]] contained a lot of examples of a [[Proud Warrior Race]], some fairly traditional with a rather condescending [[Noble Savage]] reputation. Several were from [[The Raj]], like [[Pint-Sized Powerhouse|Nepali]],[[Church Militant|Sikhs]] and [[The Rustler|Pushtans]]. Aside from that, [[Aussies With Artillery|Australians]] might qualify very well. The [[Badass Israeli|pre-Israel "Yishuv" ]] was also part of [[The British Empire]] at the time and no one can tell a [[Bonnie Scotland|Highlander]] that he is not part of a [[Proud Warrior Race]].

*** Japanese-Americans did ''not'' betray the United States, though white Americans assumed they would. (It seems most of thethem left [[Imperial Japan]] for a reason, hmmm?)

*** Goebbels, trying to create an entire ''race'' of Quislings, declared the Sioux to be Aryan. [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|It backfired horribly]]; National Socialist activity was quickly outlawed on many reservations and they declared war on Germany before the United States declared war on Japan. (The Iroquois had never retracted their last declaration of war.)

** When the men of the Red Army finally entered Germany in 1945, after four years of death and destruction in the Soviet Union at the hands of the Germans, they were very angry. Despite direct orders from Stalin totnot to treat all Germans as fasistsfascists, there were many instansesinstances of bloody revengesrevenge. Not that they had been all that well-disciplined when marching through eastern and southern europeEurope, either. Or would be when 'liberating' Japanese-occupied areas, for that matter. This did a lot to breed anti-Russian resentment throughout communistCommunist central-eastern Europe and China.

** At 3rd3 July, during official appeal to people, Stalin gave impressive speech and said phrase, that became slogan for entire war: "Our way is right, enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours".

*** Levitan was a radio announcer andwho gave plenty of them, and Nazis hated him for that,; Hitler even declared him personal enemy. Germans tried hard to kill him, and there were even reports of German shooting active loudspeakers to silence him.

* [[Sex Slave]]: "Comfort women", who were allegedly enslaved by the (tens of? figures are sketchy) thousands by both Japanese. JapanThe hasauthenticity neverof apologizedthese forclaims this,is whichmuddied tends to be a sore point, and some Japanese have called intoby the questionfirst the testimonysource of thethese conscriptsclaims -being the[[North firstKorea]] 'comfortand woman' to come forward about her conscription only spoke out in theKorean historians'90s. Whichinability probablyto saysfind something for the nature of theperiod experienceevidence.

* [[Supervillain Lair]]: While not all can be considered supervillains, a few of the major leaders had some pretty cool lairs from where they conducted the war. Roosevelt, of course, had the White House and the Japanese were in the process of finishing their massive underground Matsushiro Imperial Headquarters when they surrendered. Stalin simply went into the Metro, wich(subway), which then, changed to it'sits seconndsecond purpose: world's biggest bomb shelter. Churchill had the Cabinet War Rooms, while Hitler had nearly a ''dozen'' at his disposal. The most prominent ''Führerhauptquartiere'' included the Berghof (Hitler's private Bavarian residence), the Wolf's Lair (his Eastern Front headquarters, where the July 20 plot happened) and his ''Führerbunker'' in Berlin (where he killed himself). As for Mussolini...[http://www.cracked.com/article_18931_6-supervillains-from-history-that-make-joker-look-subtle.html just take a look at this seriously-not-Photoshopped picture under #5].

*** When Himmler asked if they need help in solving JevishJewish question they answered: "We have no Jewish question".

** Don't forget the a battlefield synagogue of Finnish/Jewish soldiers right next to the German section of their shared military camp.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: [[Awakening the Sleeping Giant|The attack on Pearl Harbor]]. Unfortunately, the nature of politics in Japan made this inevitable once the Army had failed to deliver in their attack on China and the Cabinet refused to negotiate a peace settlement with the Guomindang. Then, Hitler and his decision to declare war on the United States immediately thereafter. Less egregioiuslyegregiously, there was Hitler's decision to launch a war of conquest against the massive Soviet Union. The leadership of the Axis was just a tad barmy.

** Even the US Army Air Forces fit here, given their preferred strategy of sending formations of hundreds or thousands of bombers in broad daylight with orders to take no evasive action when under fire .<ref> Not as stupid as it may sound. They did the math and figured that dodging had no significant effect on the likelihood of being hit by an artillery shell launched from 20,000 feet below, and dodging in a [[Mighty Glacier|bomber]] was probably not going to be effective anyway.</ref>. The Army Air Forces suffered even more casualties than the Marines until the P-51 Mustangs began escorting the bombers.

* [[Young Future Famous People]]: Even more true than of [[World War OneI]]. Basically, almost any politician or other important figure from [[The Fifties]] up until at least [[The Eighties]] will have been involved in the war somehow.

* [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]] punched Hitler in his very first issue. Most [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] superheroes, since they were published during the war, fought Nazis at some point.

* Snoopy from ''[[Peanuts]]'' showed up a few times; Charles Schulz (himself having been in the military in this time) had these show up around 066 June during the later years.

A complete list can be found [https://web.archive.org/web/20110817010629/http://www.wwii-movies.com/index.php?content=list&sortby=movieyear&sortorder=asc here]. A number of the works below cover multiple categories and are grouped according to their main setting. Quite a few of these film titles were shoehorned into the above paragraphs.

* ''The Rats of Tobruk'' - focus on [[ANZA CsANZACs]] holed up in the besieged Libyan coastal town of Tobruk

* ''[[SaloSalò, Oror Thethe 120 Days Ofof Sodom]]'' - torture porn at its most depraved, the setting of Fascist Italy is really just an excuse for... icky stuff.

* ''[[Twelve O'Clock High]]''

* ''[[Das Boot]]''-- a—a German movie.

* ''[[U-571]]''--an—an American movie that caused outrage in Britain due to showing the first captured Enigma machine to be recovered by an [[Hollywood History|American submarine crew]].

* ''We Dive at Dawn'' -- a—a British movie made in 1942, set on a British submarine.

* ''Lifeboat'' -- an—an [[Alfred Hitchcock]] movie made in 1943, involving the survivors of a sunk merchant ship.

* ''The Enemy Below'' -- an—an American destroyer escort and a German U-boat duel on the high seas. Inspired the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "Balance of Terror."

* ''[[Operation Petticoat]]'' -- a—a comedy, Very, [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]] about evacuating nurses from Indonesia to Australia.

* ''[[WeveWe've Never Been Licked]]''

* Also, ''[[Number the Stars]]'' takes place in Denmark, [[World War II]].

* [[The Winds of War and War and Remembrance|The Winds of War / War and Remembrance]] is practically a grand tour of [[World War II]].

* [[Silent Ship, Silent Sea]]: A coming of age story aboard a damaged destroyer at Guadelcanal.

* ''[[Combat! (TV series)|Combat!]]''

* Four ''[[Doctor Who]]'' stories - "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S26 E3/E03 The Curse of Fenric|The Curse of Fenric]]", "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 E9S27/E09 The Empty Child|The Empty Child]]"/"[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 S27/E10 The Doctor Dances|The Doctor Dances]]", "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S31 /E03 Victory of the Daleks|Victory of the Daleks]]" and "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/2011 CS the Doctor the Widow Andand Thethe Wardrobe/Recap|The Doctor, theThe Widow, and the Wardrobe]]"."

* ''[[Blood RayneBloodRayne]]''

* ''[[Operation Darkness]]'' ([[World War II]] [[Recycled in Space|WITH WEREWOLVES AND VAMPIRE NAZIS!]])

* A bunch of Microprose games covered various aspects of [[World War II]], from the submarine and air campaigns in both oceans, to the land war in Europe and northern Africa.

* The ''[[1942]]'' series of [[Shoot 'Em UpsUp]]--ats—at least most of the series anyway--isanyway—is very loosely based on WWII.

* ''[[World of Tanks]]'' -- the—the heart of the game is here, although available tanks stretch from 1928 to 1955.

* ''[[Exo Squad]]'' is [[World War II]] [[Recycled in Space]]. Of course, it's not a complete rip-off but the entire premise just screams [[WW 2]]. And according to [[That Other Wiki]], the [[Word of God]] admits it.

* [[Wartime Cartoon|Many theatrical cartoons made in the early half of the 1940s]] had popular characters like [[Donald Duck]], [[Looney Tunes|Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck]], and [[Popeye (comic strip)|Popeye]] doing their part in the war effort.

* In one episode of ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'', the League has to go back in time and help out in the Normandy invasion to prevent Vandal Savage's plan of taking Hitler's place and using his knowledge of the future to win the war.